Covites Recollect Where They Were During 2011 Earthquake

On Aug. 23, 2011, a 5.8-magnitude earthquake located near Mineral, Va., was felt by many in the eastern United States.

According to United States Geological Survey (USGS), this earthquake caused around $200-300 million worth of property damage and was likely felt by more people than any earthquake in North America's history.

Because earthquakes are so rarely felt in this region, we asked readers if they remembered the earthquake and how they reacted.

Pandemonium

Michealle Wright was so traumatized by this earthquake, she journaled about it.

At the time, Wright was working in Bedford at Allegheny Lutheran. She was on the second floor with her coworker Tammy when the whole building started to shake and move.

"It felt like the building was going to collapse," said Wright.

She also described a "terrible sound" that came from the moving building. After Wright and her coworker evacuated and went outside, she remembers a secretary talking to a parent from a preschool in Altoona who had experienced the same thing.

Wright said she remembers the pandemonium in Washington, D.C., and New York, as people worried it was a bomb set off somewhere that was causing the shaking.

Wright also said she added to her journal entry, "Baseball game in Ohio. Earthquake shook the whole stadium."

"Earth move!"

Sandy Weyandt was also at work when she felt the earthquake. Weyandt was working at the bookshop in the airport. She recalls two customers came in – a man and a woman. The woman did not speak English well. The man went outside, and the woman continued to shop.

"Suddenly, everything went wonky," said Weyandt.

Weyandt thought a bird flew in front of her face when the earth shook. Birds often got into the airport, and Weyandt assumed that was the cause of her disorientation.

The woman began yelling in a panic and ran outside. In broken English, she said to the man, "Earth move! Earth move!"

While standing outside, the man didn't feel anything, leaving him very confused.

Weyandt later found out from someone working at the front desk that there was an earthquake in Virginia.

The Earthquake Baby

Jaynne Bowers said that all she remembers about the earthquake itself is that no on knew what it was. But she knows for sure that her family was awaiting the arrival of her granddaughter, who was born shortly after the earthquake.

Leah Anne Dell turned 10 on Aug. 23 this year.

"We remember it every year," said Bowers. "My husband still calls her 'the earthquake baby.'"

Who just hit the Herald?

From Herald Publisher Allan Bassler:

"When the Cove earthquake hit, I was upstairs, in the second floor of the Herald building in Martinsburg. At that time, my mother, Peggy Steinfurth, rented an apartment there and I was checking on a leak in the bathroom. I was standing in the bathroom pondering my lack of plumbing skills when I felt the floor shake. Everything seemed to give a little shift-shift, like the Herald building had taken a dance step. I remember that a can of air freshener on the back of the toilet rocked back and forth but did not tip over. I remember thinking, 'What the heck was that?'

The only thing that I could imagine was that a vehicle had slammed into the Herald building. I ran downstairs to check ... but nothing. No vehicles were embedded in the Herald building's brick exterior. I was baffled until I heard the news that it had been an earthquake.

That was the only earthquake that I've ever experienced. It was such an unusual thing to experience that I had no context for it. I could only imagine that something awful had happened. I'm glad that nothing awful had happened and that the quake was not enough to do damage to the Cove. Just the same, if I never experience another earthquake, I'll be content."